


Guess I Better Spell It Out For Ya (Cause I Can't Say It Out Loud)

by dorkysetters



Category: IT (2017), IT (2019), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Confession, Found Family, Love, M/M, Scrabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 07:31:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20560565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorkysetters/pseuds/dorkysetters
Summary: Sometimes all you need to express your feelings is an empty clubhouse, a hammock, and a game of scrabble.





	Guess I Better Spell It Out For Ya (Cause I Can't Say It Out Loud)

After Pennywise, almost all of the laughter had been taken from the club-house. No longer did the seven of them spend their afternoons together in their cramped, spider-infected home in the Barrens. Bill was on vacation with family, Beverly hundreds of miles away in her new home. Their mission was complete, and they no longer had any physical, tangible reason to remain connected at the hip- to remain a family.

And yet here they were, Eddie and Richie, squeezed together tightly on the hammock. It had taken forever to arrange themselves the way they sat now, sitting criss-cross, knees pressed together. Their combined weight threatened to pitch them both over the edge onto the dusty floor, so they sat with the backs perfectly straight to keep them from tipping over. It was uncomfortable, and the humid, dusty air made the points where their knees touched hot and sweaty. Neither of them wanted to move. 

An old scrabble board, found hidden in the back of Eddie’s closet, was perched on the top of their legs. Eddie kept his collection of letters hidden behind his cast while Richie cradled his in his lap. 

“Your move, Eds.”

Eddie shot a glare at Richie before turning his attention back to the board. Colorful synonyms for penis were littered across the board, along with all the cuss words they could remember. It was a scrabble board that without a doubt belonged to a teenage boy: dumb and absolutely hilarious if you were young enough to appreciate it. It seemed out of place in the dark, quiet clubhouse, especially on the knees of two boys who had seen the devil, and fought him too. 

“Can’t think of anything, huh?” Richie smiled. 

“I’ve literally been thinking for five seconds. Would you chill before your brain overheats or something?” 

Richie held up his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t get your panties all knotted up. Take your time; I’m gonna win, anyway.” 

Eddie frowned and looked down at the score sheet he was cradling in his lap. “Oh, yeah? Look, it says right here under my name that I’m ahead twenty points. You know what that means? I’m winning. W-i-n-n-i-n-g.”

“What does it say under ‘you’re a loser’?”

“Shut up Richie. I’m trying to think.” 

“Eddie Kasprak trying to think? Someone call a doctor!”

Eddie flipped his scrabble partner the bird. “Go fuck a clown, alright?”

They stared at each other, eyes wide at the crass remark, and managed two full seconds of silence before the laughter came, loud and free. They were happy; free to be together in safety, away from killer clowns and stinking sewers. Free to make jokes about fucking the thing that had almost killed them a few days before. Despite the laughter, something, five specific somethings to be exact, was missing. Their laughter left the hammock and struggled to fill the empty clubhouse. They smiled sweet, sincere smiles at each other as their laughter faded into silence. Richie looked away before Eddie could see him blushing. 

He looked around the clubhouse to keep his face out of sight until he could get his heart to stop pounding so loudly. He glared at the physical evidence of his friends existences, Bill’s playing cards, Mike’s comic books, Bev’s cigarettes, and wished that they were here to stop his thoughts from going the direction they were going now. But that was all there was; stuff. Bill wasn’t there to say something that got them all laughing, and Bev was too far away to invite anyone on a trip to the convenience store. The emptiness was heavy and threatened to tip him over onto the floor. 

“I miss them.” Eddie said suddenly. Richie looked to face him and saw Eddie looking out at the rest of the clubhouse, eyes lost in memory. He pressed his good hand, the one not handicapped by plaster, over his heart. “It hurts.” 

“Yeah.” Richie pushed his glasses up further up on his nose. “It does.” 

They sat in silence for a moment as Eddie massaged his chest and Richie tried in vain to tear his eyes away from his friend’s face. He looked away as Eddie moved to take a puff from his aspirator. 

Richie coughed. “Your go, Eds.” 

“Right.” He looked back down at his letters. Profanity didn’t seem appropriate anymore, although he did have the right letters for “shithole.” He played something else instead.

“Losers.” Richie looked at Eddie’s word thoughtfully. “That’s us, huh.”

“Losers,” Eddie nodded. 

The word meant something neither of them could express in words alone; it meant strength and loss and sacrifice and family. All that, and it was only worth five points. Stupid scrabble. 

Richie looked down at his letters. There was nothing he wanted to say that could be expressed in the seven letters he had at his disposal. Even with all the letters in the word, he wasn’t sure he was brave even to say it. He glanced at Eddie out of the corner of his eye and touched his chest, right above his heart, the same way Eddie had touched his a few moments before. It was full of love and gratitude, so much so that it felt close to bursting the fuck apart. There was another feeling there, too, something looking at Eddie’s face made him feel; courage. He placed his word on the board slowly, letter by letter.

Eddie looked at the letters. “Love? What’s that for?”

Richie moved to put more letters on the board.

“Hey, you don’t get two turns! Richie-.”

They stared silently at the new word in front of them. Right at the bottom of ‘love’, nestled next to the letter ‘E’ was Eddie’s name. Richie wiped his sweaty palms on his shirt, stopping suddenly to hear Eddie’s sharp intake of breath. All the courage Richie had felt half a second before melted away; it was like he was right back at the arcade, with Henry Bowers shoving his secret in his face, exposing it to the world. 

“Shit,” he said sharply, “I’m sorry man, that was stupid.” He turned quickly to get off the hammock. The scrabble board followed, sending the letters flying across the room. “I’m just gonna- I’ll see you later.”

“No, stop!” Eddie scrambled out of the hammock and grabbed Richie’s wrist. Richie turned his body to face Eddie, but kept his eyes on the floor. 

“I, uh,” Eddie started. “I, do too. Love. You. You just didn’t give me a chance to play the word I was gonna play, which was probably going to be something really cool and smart and would have been worth so many points that you would have just forfeited the game and-”

“Eds,” Richie interrupted. “I don’t love you, like-like that.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno, like the way I love Bill or Beverly or Ben or Mike or Stanley. They’re my best friends, but you’re, I don’t know, Eddie.”

Eddie scrunched up his nose. “You love me cause my name is Eddie?”

“Oh my god. You’re actually stupid, aren’t you?”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Oh my god,” Richie looked up from the floor into Eddie’s face. “I love you, okay! Like Bill loves Beverly, or how Ben loves birthday cake. That kinda love! That’s what I was trying to say with that stupid word, alright?”

They considered each other for a moment; Eddie watching as Richie clumsily wiped at his wet eyes with his free hand. Both of them, for the first time, were glad of the heavy silence in the once full clubhouse. 

“I already said what I wanted to say,” Eddie said firmly after a moment of silence. He let go of Richie’s wrist and grabbed his hand instead, intertwining their fingers. “I meant it, and I’m not gonna say anything else.”

Richie looked down at their hands. Holding hands with Eddie Kasprak was a lot sweatier than he had expected it to be, but it was a lot better, too. He grinned. “Looks like we’re both winners, huh?”

**Author's Note:**

> I just saw It Chapter Two in theaters and I am dying! Please feel free to cry with me about the losers club over at @magicktaako on tumblr. I hope you enjoyed this little fic <3


End file.
